Humanity
by JennyWren
Summary: He didn´t hate her. On the contrary: He loved her. But her hated the way she made him feel. Complete!
1. Chapter one

Humanity 

**Disclaimer: **I do not own the characters from "The Phantom of the Opera". They belong to Gaston Leroux / Andrew Lloyd Webber.

Chapter one 

Once his life had been easy. He had been in control of everything. Of course he knew that his power didn´t extend beyond the opera, but this was enough for him. It had become his world, where he could do whatever he pleased. He had been delighted to discover how simple it was to manipulate people, to make them fulfil his wishes. Secretly he despised them for their weakness, their _humanity_. Over the years this word had turned into a swearword for him. His mind had always been able to dominate his emotions.

But this was no longer true. Day after day he felt his emotions grow stronger. They distracted him from composing, or all he could produce was meaningless nonsense. Sometimes he even caught himself daydreaming. And everything was her fault. How could a normal chorus girl make him feel this way? He had pondered over this question for hours without finding a sufficient answer. For the first time he had found something his mind couldn´t explain, and for this reason he hated it. It had to end before he lost control over himself entirely, before he became weak.

_Weaker_, he corrected himself. His hands clenched into fists as he remembered how dangerously close she had come this evening:

_Right from the moment he entered the small room they used for their lessons he noticed that Christine was acting in a peculiar way. She blushed rather often and was unable to meet his eye. At first he suspected that she had not practiced her aria as he had instructed her to, but when she started singing it soon became clear that this was not the case._

_Erik watched her out of the corner of his eye while he accompanied her. Suddenly he realised it: His student was in love. He had seen the other chorus girls behave like that dozens of times, whispering and giggling, not paying attention to what they were supposed to do on stage. It was both stupid and annoying, and he had appreciated it that Christine wasn´t that kind of girl. On the contrary, she always seemed to be a little isolated in the group. She hadn´t yet managed to get into the elitist circle of Meg Giry´s friends. The girls treated her with a certain wariness, just like they did it with every new member of the chorus. But Erik doubted Christine would be accepted soon: The others hadn´t failed to notice her great potential as a singer and were afraid of the competition._

_And now Christine was in love. Maybe for the first time he examined her more closely than necessary. Quickly he came to the conclusion that her body could be considered beautiful, the long, dark curls, which fell over her shoulders, her large brown eyes, thered lips and the slim figure. He knew next to nothing about what men usually found attractive in a woman, but from the occasional conversations he overheard he had deduced at least some pieces of information._

_Erik was grateful that he could play the piano without having to think about it as he arrived at the question who the man could be. There were several male dancers in the opera, though at least two of them didn´t seem to be interested in the fair sex at all. As most singers were too old for her, only some stage hands remained. Somehow he couldn´t believe Christine had taken a liking in one of them. But then, it was none of his business._

_A soft touch made him stop dead. Apparently his student had left her normal place while he had been lost in thought and stood behind him now. For some reason her hand was lying on his shoulder. He stared at it. It was incredibly warm – it seemed to burn a hole right to his heart. Erik´s breath grew shallow as the fingers started moving up and down his arm. He couldn´t remember when he had been touched the last time, _deliberately._ He was feeling …No! He couldn´t allow himself to feel. He couldn´t become weak or he would be like _them

"_What are you doing there, Mlle.Daaé?", he asked as calmly as possible, purposefully not using her first name. "Well, I…" At once the hand was gone, replaced by nothing but emptiness. He turned around to look at her. Nervously she played with a strand of her hair, twirling it around her finger. "Could I talk to you, monsieur? About something private?" Her voice trembled slightly, and her gaze was fixed on the ground. "I´m afraid that I don´t have enough time today. Perhaps after the next lesson…"_

He had practically fled from the room to come up here, to the roof of the opera. Often he had good ideas while staring into the dark sky. It also worked now. As he thought about everything he quickly found the reason: Christine only behaved like that because she was looking for attention. She felt lonely at the opera and had therefore developed these strange feelings for the only person who was gentle to her: her teacher. So all she needed was a friend. Then she would leave him in peace.

Sighing soundlessly Erik touched the same spot where he hand had been earlier. Still it felt a little warmer than the rest of his body. He only hoped the plan which was just forming in his head would work. He didn´t want all these emotions.


	2. Chapter two

**Chapter two**

A few streets away Christine leaned out of the window of her room, looking at the same sky and her mind circling around the same topic. With the window open she could at least pretend to herself that it was only the cool night air which made her eyes water. She didn´t want to cry. Why couldn´t she be more like the other girls, who laughed about such experience and started admiring the next man immediately?

For as long as she could remember she had been different from girls of her age, but when her father had still been alive it hadn´t been that important to her. ´You have me, and I have you.´, he had said on the rare occasions when she had complained about not having friends. Then he had fetched his violin, sometimes playing a cheerful melody, sometimes a melancholy one. Either way Christine had been happy again as she had sung.

She shook her head emphatically. Music certainly wasn´t the right subject to think about at the moment. Almost wistfully she remembered his long fingers wandering over the keys of the piano and his soft voice telling her to repeat a part of a song. ´He´s not dead.´, she reminded herself. ´You´ll see him again tomorrow evening.´ But at the same time she was aware that she´d never be able to look at him as before, now that he knew what she was feeling. He had known it without her saying so… Sometimes Christine wondered whether he was even human.

Not in the literal sense, of course. She knew he wasn´t the Angel of Music – he had told her the first time they had come face to face. He was a human being. She could touch him, and he could touch her, although admittedly he had not done so a single time. He didn´t even shake her hand at the beginning or end of a lesson, obviously avoiding every physical contact. The girl had been shocked to discover how cold his shoulder had been under her fingers. She had been even more surprised, however, by her urgent wish to wrap her arms around him, warming him.

Christine couldn´t tell whether this was child-like affection, friendship or something else. Whatever it was Erik apparently didn´t return it. Or maybe he couldn´t return it… Quickly she wiped away the telltale signs of tears on her face, closed the window and went to bed. As she blew out the candle on her bedside table she suddenly thought that this was a situation in which she needed a friend, someone to talk to about the odd feelings she had. She sighed and closed her eyes, trying to sleep.

…………………………………………………………………………………………………

"Good morning, Christine! How are you?" Christine looked up from her ballet shoes, surprised to find Meg Giry standing in front of her. Meg knew her name? Meg talked to her? Well, maybe she wanted to do a good deed. It would be foolish to overrate it. "I´m fine.", she said, still a little puzzled. The other girl beamed at her. "Good. Look, I want to go for a walk after the rehearsal. Don´t you want to come with me?" Christine frowned. "What about Martine, Sophie and Cathérine?", she asked, referring to Meg´s usual companions. "Oh, they don´t want to accompany me.", she replied hastily. A smile lit up Christine´s face. "All right!", she said. "Great! See you then!"

Meg turned around and went to her normal place in the dressing room. She hoped that the new girl hadn´t noticed how relieved she had been that she had accepted her invitation. He had made clear that he wanted everything to go quickly, so Meg had wasted no time. At first she had been astonished about the letter she had been given by Mme.Giry that morning. Her mother hadn´t needed many words to convince her that it was no joke. If the Opera Ghost asked you for something, you had to fulfil his wish. Everyone knew and respected that: M.Lefèvre, M.Reyer – everyone. So if she, Meg Giry, received a note telling her to become friends with Christine Daaé, she had to do it. She was even a little proud of the task; usually only important people in the opera got his instructions. Besides, maybe she would have done it anyway. This Christine seemed to be a nice girl. If she ended up liking her, it would be even better.

…………………………………………………………………………………………………...

"I would have never believed she was that friendly.", Christine finished. It hadn´t been her intention to tell her teacher the whole story, but she had needed something to conceal her embarrassment on their first meeting after her unsuccessful advance. So she had talked for several minutes, unaware of Erik´s satisfied smile. He had watched the Giry girl take her to the park, a little angry that he had not been able to listen to their conversation. Anger was an emotion he allowed himself to have. It had influenced his decisions positively more than once, so it was an exception, a feeling which made him stronger.

Christine looked at him, waiting for his reaction. Now she also noticed that he was smiling, realising that he was even more attractive when he did so. Inwardly she shook her head about herself. How could she call someone whose whole face she had never seen attractive? Yet she knew her feelings had increased since she had spoken to Meg about them, of course without telling her who the man was. Meg´s advice had been simple: ´Maybe it had nothing to do with you. Men are strange sometimes. It´ll be best if you wait a few days and try again.´. So she would wait.

"I´m glad you found a friend, Christine.", Erik said. He was glad indeed. The more time she spent with Meg Giry, the less time she had to think about him. If she had ever done so! After all, he couldn´t be sure of it. Perhaps her behaviour had had completely different reasons. She was still very young, probably too young to be in love. But then, what did he know about girls? "However, we should continue our aria now. Please start from bar 35!"


	3. Chapter three

**Chapter three**

´It still isn´t better.´, Erik thought, once again watching Christine and Meg going out of the opera. Even though his student apparently wanted to hide it, her eyes still wandered to him in lessons when she thought he wouldn´t notice. But he did notice, and although he hated himself for this behaviour it didn´t leave him entirely indifferent. Sometimes he wished he could just meet her gaze, say some friendly words and… But of course he couldn´t.

Still he wanted to know what exactly Christine was feeling for him. It was curiosity, not more and not less. That was certainly one of the wrong emotions, but he couldn´t help following its lead, out of the opera and in the park the two girls had spent a lot of time in during the last days. Fortunately not many people visited this small park, so Erik had the possibility to stand a short distance away from the bench the girls had settled on and eavesdrop on their conversation without attracting the attention of passers-by.

"I know you can do it.", Meg was just saying, squeezing her new friend´s arm softly. "It´s not that easy, Meg." Christine sounded as if she had recently cried. "I cannot just interrupt Erik´s lesson tonight and tell him: ´Oh, by the way, I love you.´." "Why don´t you give him a kiss? Then you don´t have to talk.", Meg suggested, earning a shocked look from the other girl. "You should have seen his reaction when I only touched his arm. Kiss him? He would probably refuse to ever see again. I couldn´t stand that. I´d rather remain no more than his student for all times than … than … " Her voice turned into sobs, and Meg wrapped her arms around her comfortingly.

Erik turned around and walked back to the opera. Now he had found out what he wanted to know. His plan hadn´t worked. He had given Christine a friend to distract her, but instead of doing so the stupid Giry girl encouraged her feelings for him. Erik waited for anger to build up in him, but it didn´t happen. He felt something else: It was similar to the feeling he had worked so hard on suppressing a few days ago. Though he had never had it in its full extend before he knew how to call it. It was happiness.

But he couldn´t allow himself to surrender to this emotion! He would end up being just like all other people in the opera, mere slaves to their feelings. For a second he closed his eyes and could hear Christine´s voice: ´Kiss him? He would probably refuse to ever see me again.´. No, he wouldn´t. Erik smiled slightly. Suddenly he knew what he had to do.

Briefly he thought about what he would lose: a life in complete control, shielded from the rest of the world, seemingly protected from being disappointed. And what would he gain? He saw Christine´s picture before his eyes, heard her voice and felt her hand on his shoulder. His heart seemed to swell with … love. That was what he had been fighting. One last time his mind tried to rebel, but Erik didn´t listen to it anymore. Only humans could love, and he had no doubt that he loved Christine. So his emotions had already started to undermine the superiority of his mind. Now all he had to do was showing her what he was allowing himself to feel at last, and she would return it. Erik eagerly waited for the evening.

_The End_


End file.
